Schonhose

I can still remember why I started this blog a few years back. I was heavily into the development of several web applications and I wanted a place where I could showcase the stuff I have written. So basically this blog was born and it has served its purpose ever since.

However, time doesn’t stand still and numerous events have taken place after the initial launch. I have had some make overs, added some features, upgraded old features and in general I found doing those things enjoyable. But times have changed, free time to spend on programming and blogging are getting more and more sparse.

The lack of free time is also the reason why I have searched (and found) another solution to display my images on the web (shameless plug: http://foto.schonhose.nl). I even started thinking about how I could change this blog into something more useful, something with more information and something more easier to maintain. I haven’t found that something just yet, so in the mean time I just keep this blog up and running. I do want to share some stuff that has drawn my attention.

My good friend Jay Williams has been blogging as well, but redefined the blog a bit. His blogging, a mixture between tweeting and real blogging, is really nice if you do want to share something, but don’t want to write a full pledge post. I really like the format Jay is using.

Perhaps this is why I have started using Twitter more and more. It allows for small messages to be posted for followers to see. It also allows for some interaction that is probably on a lower level compared to leaving a comment on a blog.

But writing is no fun if nobody actually reads the posts. So the real question is: who is visiting these pages and read my ramblings? My guess, based upon the comments, the majority of visitors are spammers, trying to spam their stuff at my blog. Secondly, there is still a group of people, using Pixelpost, who are downloading my addons. These addons are still regularly downloaded, with a couple of downloads a day. And third, there is this (probably small) group of people that are actually reading my ramblings. Sometimes there is some interaction using the comments, but most of the times I have no clue who is actually reading this. Since nobody is actually complaining about the lack of updates it is safe to conclude that nobody really cares about my ramblings.

Perhaps herein lies the solution for my initial question: “what to do with my blog?”. The focus now is on the blogging part, something that I haven’t done for some time. Perhaps I should move that part more to the background, changing the stuff people see when they open my website. Give people easy access to what they want (well, except the spamming part) by providing a choice to go to the Pixelpost addons, my photoblog or my textual blog. Perhaps I could even track how many people make a certain choice, to get more insight what they really want.

Or perhaps I should stop thinking about this.

Over the last few weeks I have been really slacking in writing blog posts. Let me make it up by giving a small “current events” lecture.

Well, Lightroom 3.0 is out and that means we can start working on updating the Pixelpost to Lightroom plugin. However, the problem with that is that I don’t have Lightroom 3.0 yet, but I plan on buying it. That goes for Adobe CS5 as well. It all depends when it comes available in our special store since I’m eligible for a special discount on Adobe products.

As mentioned earlier I have taken a trip to Paris a few weeks back. Some of those shot will make it onto my photoblog, so check back often. It will also feature some shots from the Giro ‘d Italia and some other random stuff I made the last few weeks. I’m really trying to get back into the groove of taking pictures, but because some other stuff I also have to work on, it is hard to find time.

Some of you guys wonder what is happening with Pixelpost these days. Well, to be honest we’re having some kind of break. With the dreadful winter behind us it is time to leave our computers and explore the great outdoors more often. Rest assured, Pixelpost is not forgotten and we’ll continue to work on it. If you’re willing to help, just drop us a line with some examples of your work.

Well, that is it for now, take care and until next time!

It has been a while since my last post and like always I managed to find a good excuse for not posting anything. The last month (!) I have been busy trying to solve a riddle which involved the Defensio addon. As you have probably read on this blog or somewhere else on the web, Defensio is used to protect a blog against comment spam. A few months back I was very excited about the version 2 release of the api and I modified the plugin for the photoblogging software Pixelpost for this new version.

About a month ago I noticed that huge amounts of spam were actually published in my websites. Pretty strange, considering Defensio was active to prevent this behavior. It took some long nights to discover that my hostingcompany had disabled the fsockopen functionality, something that is extensively used by Defensio. So we had to switch to Curl, although that wasn’t completely operational just yet. The guys at Defensio put in some extra hours and provided me with a working test version. After some modifications Defensio was yet again stopping spam in my photoblog.

However, I also have a WordPress blog (you’re reading it) and that also attracts tons of spam. So much in fact I updated some core files of the WP addon with the newly programmed files and a fresh copy from GitHub to enable Defensio again. To bad it didn’t work. Over 100 spam comments a day where published on my blog and had to be removed manually. It took me and Camilo from Defensio about three nights debugging to catch the offending line of code and finally the plugin (which stopped working at March 21, 2010( is fully operational again since last night.

Finally all spam is getting caught again which frees me up to do some more bug hunting in some code I wrote instead.

In the light of today’s game, which we won by the way, I just came to a realization:

Being a coach is pretty much like being a referee. No matter what you do, at least someone will disagree with you and feel left out.

I’m pretty sure this is valid for all kind of sports at every level. Does this realization make it easier to handle? No, actually it does not. Does it make it even easier to do? Not even close. Does it make me feel good? No, it never feels good to disappoint one of more individuals.

So, what is my take on it for basketball? Well, first and foremost basketball is a teamsport and not an individual sport. The catchphrase here is “There is no ‘I’ in team”, meaning there is basically not much room for the individual. What does that mean? You have to occasionally set aside your personal aspirations for the benefit of the team.

On the other hand, and this creates a nice paradox, you need individuals to form a team. This fact is a really good basis for a conflict of interest and most certainly a starting point for disappointments.

As a coach the thing you have to focus on should be first and foremost the team. All decisions are made with the team in mind. Some of those decisions might be good and others might not be so good (in retrospect) but seemed to be ok at the time. It is inevitable to disappoint individuals while performing sacrifices for the team. But making individual sacrifices is also part of the concept of a team.

As a member of a team you have to set your personal goals aside so the team in whole can flourish. For example, as an individual you might want to play as many minutes as possible. As a teammember you might just get limited minutes. But the minutes aren’t really the issue here, the real question is: what can you do in that limited timeframe to help the team? Can your actions in those minutes be the turning point of the game or be an inspiration to one or multiple teammembers?

I know what I always wanted as a player. I would rather play limited numbers, score zero points and win the game than play the whole game, outscore everyone and loose. Because in the end it is after all about the team. And nothing hurts more than loosing.